Content providers provide content, such as text, images, audio, video, and the like, to wireless users over wireless networks. Content providers may provide content to wireless users either on-demand (e.g., in response to requests received from wireless users over the wireless network) or automatically (e.g., by pushing content to wireless users over the wireless network). While content pushing schemes generally alleviate many problems associated with providing content to users, such as eliminating setup/buffering latencies and disruptions during playback (e.g., due to network and channel conditions), existing content pushing schemes do not work well in wireless networks.
Disadvantageously, existing content pushing schemes utilize fixed schedules for pushing content to wireless users, thereby resulting in inefficient wireless network utilization and user terminal resource utilization. Specifically, at high push rates the bandwidth of other users may be adversely affected and at low push rates the user terminal battery is drained (due to the extended time during which content is pushed to the user terminal). Therefore, existing content pushing schemes negatively impact performance perceived by all wireless users (including wireless users registered for content push services, as well as wireless subscribers not registered for content push services).